The Tahitian Pearl Ring
by Rocker Lullaby
Summary: After Annabeth and Percy come back from Tartarus, they give each other a promise ring. However, not everyone is supportive of a pair of teenager engaged at the age of seventeen. / "We'll prove them wrong" / T 'cause paranoia


This isn't the first fanfic I've written, but it is, however, the first I've ever written and translated to english so... hope there aren't too many mistakes. Enjoy! :D

PS: There's a link in my profile with a collage (kinda) of how Annabeth's ring would look like.

* * *

The promise ring Percy gave Annabeth when they finally returned home had a rose gold —the same color of celestial bronze— band, with a Tahitian pearl in the center.

He told Annabeth that he found the pearl in the bottom of the sea —when he visited his dad, who required his presence as soon as Percy set a foot on Camp Halfblood, for the first time since the war with Gaia ended—, and that he took it because it reminded her of her eyes.

But as Annabeth admired the ring beneath the sunlight that entered through the window of office of the school counselor, she found that the turquoise shine that it adopted looked more like Percy's eyes.

That just made her love the ring even more, which was kind of difficult considering how much she already did. It was silly. It wasn't even an engagement ring —it was a promise ring to an engagement. But it was a promise that, if they had a said in it, Percy and Annabeth would have a life together.

"Annabeth." called the counselor.

Annabeth raised her eyes and fixated them on the woman in front of her, who had a notebook in her lap, with her legs crossed. She was slightly crouching towards Annabeth and her hand was clenched around the pen. She was annoyed —she had been calling for her.

Annabeth acted as if she didn't notice.

"Mrs. Robertson."

Her hand clenched the pen more tightly.

For a counselor, Mrs. Robertson sure had a short temper.

"Annabeth, you have been in school just for a month. I didn't met you before, because you didn't assist to school here, but you crossed the country to come live with Percy. That can sign co-dependence."

"I know."

"And know you're engaged." Mrs. Robertson continued, as if waiting for Annabeth to acknowledge what was wrong in the picture.

And Annabeth could see it. From the outside, people would only see that they were too close to each other, co-dependent. But Annabeth thought of it as justified. After all that happened, only Percy had been the constant in her life since he entered, and only Annabeth had been the rock of Percy in this new world. They belonged with each other.

But their connection was unexplained to mortals.

"We're not exactly engaged." Annabeth meditated. "It's more of an engagement ring for an engagement." she tried to explain.

"But don't you think you're rushing things?" Mrs. Robertson pressed.

Annabeth shrugged.

"We have nothing to wait for. Life's short, and this may be our only opportunity." Especially when you're a demigod.

"But why invest yourselves in a relationship so, so young?"

"I don't see why not. I can't imagine someone more perfect for me than Percy."

"I've known Percy since he started at Goode High" Mrs. Robertson said in a condescend tone, "You both couldn't be more different. Shouldn't you find someone who would fit more with your personality? Basing a matrimony in looks would only lead to disaster."

Anger flared inside Annabeth, and she refrained from yelling at that woman. She didn't knew her nor her life, she had no right to question her decisions. But she knew that such a close minded woman like Mrs. Robertson wouldn't have her way of seeing things changed by a single lecture of a teenager, and Annabeth didn't have the time nor the drive to continue working with her.

"Why would I want a relationship with a male version of me?" she said monotonously. "I'm proud and difficult to deal with. I'm assertive and threatening and mean. I wouldn't date myself."

Mrs. Robertson sent her a pitying look and Annabeth considered strangling her for a second.

"Are you afraid of not finding a partner? You're a gorgeous lady, Annabeth, that won't be a problem."

"I want Percy, I _love_ Percy." she declared through her gritted teeth.

"You are too young to get married. If I was your mother I would never let you." Mrs. Robertson insisted.

_Good thing you're not, huh?_

"If you loved each other as you say you do," Mrs. Robertson continued, "you would be willing to wait. To be sure, once your brains are fully formed when you're twenty one."

Annabeth glared at Mrs. Robertson.

"Marriages can be broken apart." Annabeth started, trying not to yell at the woman's face. "If so, then marriage isn't an act of love. It is, though, a bet. A bet of what you're willing to do to keep it from falling apart, to keep yourselves together. Everything yours turns also his, and everything his is also yours. Co-dependency is not the reason why I want to marry Percy. Marriage is a way to legally claim him as mine, and myself as his."

"Why would you want it to be legal? Why proclaim it to the world?"

"Because it will keep me from sabotaging my relationship with Percy." Annabeth responded dryly, tired of the woman's unsubtle way of searching for a loophole in Annabeth's thinking to make her change her mind.

"You want to tie him down to you by marriage." Mrs. Robertson stated.

Annabeth fisted her hand beneath her chin, her elbow resting on her crossed legs, and she leaned in.

"Mrs. Robertson," she said softly, "I'm not trying to tie him down to me. I'm tying myself to him."

Just as the words got out of her mouth, the kitchen timer in Mrs. Robertson's desk signaled the end of Annabeth session. Annabeth stood from the couch and started walking towards the exit.

"'Til next week, Mrs. Robertson." she called over her shoulder, as she hooked her backpack on her shoulder.

As soon as Annabeth got out of Mrs. Robertson's office, she was pinned against the wall. Normally, that would gain the respective boy a knee to where it hurts, but Annabeth recognized the scent of sea almost instantly, and received happily Percy's salty lips with her own.

The kiss didn't last more than a minute, but it leaved Annabeth with problems to retain the smile that was fighting to broke through her face.

She opened her eyes to find the happy greenish-blue ones of Percy.

But Annabeth deflated as soon as she remembered her meeting with Mrs. Robertson and Percy furrowed his eyebrows, concerned.

"Again." he guessed.

She suppressed a groan, her hands tracing Percy's promise ring. A simple band in rose gold, with an engraving of waves in turquoise and a gray one of a tiny owl in the side.

"I just don't get what gives people the right to comment on my decisions! They can complain about how we're making a mistake all they want, as long as they do it in their heads. It's just… I feel like they're doing it just so they can say _I told you so_ when we divorce. And it makes me so angry, because we aren't going to divorce. We live together already, and we've gone through worse things than a lot of couples and—"

Percy cut her off with a kiss, and Annabeth kissed back almost desperately. She was fully certain that their relationship will survive to anything gods, monsters, titans or giants could toss at them, but she would like it if people didn't assume that, because of the sole fact that they were teenagers, their relationship would fail.

"We'll prove them wrong." Percy promised, his breath caressing her lips, as they were only an inch away.

Annabeth smiled.

"We'll prove them wrong." she repeated, just before she kissed him again.


End file.
